You Know Me Through The Years

The Stranger

Her mother's voice singing her to sleep was the last thing she remembered before everything went to hell. She remembered her father, or rather the man she called father, leaning up against the doorframe of her room with a content smile on his face. She barely registered the sound of the bell above the door to the shop ringing.

"You did lock the door, right?" Her mother's thick Romanian accent sounded worried when the sound echoed through the building.

"Yes." Her father's strong baritone voice always offered comfort when she felt scared. "I made sure to lock it."

"Then why is there something in the shop?" Her mother's eyes went wide. "A demon." Within a few seconds, Anna's mother had sprinted out of her bedroom with fire in her eyes.

"Stay in here, Anna." Her father said to her before rushing after the woman.

Anna, in all of her confusion, slowly crept out of bed and to her bedroom door. The hallway was empty and the door that led to the shop at the end was open. She could hear her mother's accented voice demanding the stranger in their home to leave. The little girl tip-toed to the door and slowly peeked out of it. The door led to the loft above the shop, which opened up into a vast space filled with books and all sorts of occult objects that her father had collected on his journies across the world. Some of them were thousands of years old and some she was not even allowed to touch.

However, when she looked over the edge of the loft and down at her parents, she saw just who they were confronting. A bald man with a demonic scar on the left side of his face held her interest. The uneasy feeling in her stomach made her want to run away, but her curiosity empowered her to stay.

"You know how to summon it, do you not?" The stranger was being very polite, but the look on her father's face was stern.

"No one needs to summon it." Her father crossed his arms with a serious look in his deep brown eyes. "I was there when it was sealed. You've already attempted to summon it, haven't you?"

"A failed attempt, but I have another key this time." The man stepped closer to Anna's father. "The blood of Sparda." She watched as her father looked at her mother with concern. Their eyes met before she nodded.

"You've roped one of his son's into your machinations without any second thought." Her mother spoke up. "How do you think this will end?"

"In my favor." The man did not hesitate to summon a dark shadow. Anna could barely contain her fear when the shadow formed into a demon and attempted to grab her mother by the throat. However, her mother was one step ahead by summoning fire to block the demon. Anna had only seen her mother summon fire once before. "A witch cannot hope to defeat me." Her mother's rage was evident when she was able to form a ball of fire and throw it at the man, only for him to walk out of it unscathed. "You are not powerful enough."

Anna almost screamed when she saw another shadow form behind her mother and impaling her with its spiky hand. She looked away as her mother's gasps left her with tears in her eyes. The demon was quick to throw her mother's body at the bookshelf across the way causing a reverberating sound of flesh and bone to echo through her. She had not been prepared for any of this.

"Now, I'd hate to end your already long and miserable life as well." The stranger summoned more monsters and they surrounded her father. "So, give me the book and I'll let you continue your meager existence." Her father did nothing, only looking up at her briefly before he waved his hand in the air. Within a second a leather bound book formed in the air and landed in his hands.

"You will need much more than Sparda's blood to open the gates." Her father hesitantly handed the book to the strange man. "You'll see what I mean." Without a second to spare the man opened the book and flipped through the pages.

"How clever." He shut the book with force. "It was a pleasure." Her father did not move when the man made to leave, however with a snap of the man's fingers, she watched as demons descended upon her father. It was barely a second when the shadows left her father lying there on the wooden floor gasping for breath, but still very much alive. The man stopped right as he opened the door and looked back. "Immortality is not invincibility." Then he was gone.

Thunder boomed above her as she began to silently cry. She had just witnessed the most terrible thing a child could see. The murder of her parents. She slowly started to make her way to the stairs that led down to the shop as the bell above the door rang again. This time another stranger came in.

He was different from the strange man with the scar. He was much younger and held a sword in his hand. His pale features reminded her of a portrait in one of her father's old books. He almost looked exactly the same, but much younger. He came to stand over her father's dying body.

"I know you." Her father croaked out as she slowly crept down the stairs. "Vergil." The name her father uttered stuck within her memory. "End me." Was the last thing her father ever said before the sickening sound of a blade being quickly unsheated then piercing flesh.

Anna's heart stopped as she made the last step down onto the wood floor. Her bare feet never made a sound as she walked around the corner to see the damage that had been done. Her whole world had been stolen away from her in a few minutes and by a stranger, no less. She came to stand next to her mother's broken body as the new stranger, Vergil, turned around.

All at once there was the point of a sword only a foot away from her. Even with tears in her eyes, she looked up at the pale man. She could not tell if he was a danger to her or not, but she knew he played a part in this. She knew his face would forever be etched in her memory and his name would echo through her mind. He was not a good man. He was not even human to her.

However, there seemed to be a small hint of conflict in him. He removed the point of his sword away from her before he stepped closer with a cold gaze. In an instant, all she saw was darkness.

The nightmare still haunted her thirty years later, until the pale man walked into her shop with a bag full of old books.

The man's name... Vergil.